History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

language as the following: "The office conferred upon Dr. Coke had all the attributes ascribed to an
order; namely, ordination, life tenure, and successional permanence in the future." And again, "Are
not our Bishops consecrated by the most solemn of the three ordinations? How can there be an
ordination, if not to an order?" Well might such views excite alarm. Even Dr. Stevens, from whom
better things might have been expected, in his elaborate defense of the Episcopacy of Asbury, says,"
And if he did ordain Coke, it may again be asked, as Coke was already a presbyter, to what was he
thus ordained, if it was not to the only remaining office, — the episcopacy?" But that was more than
thirty years ago, while he was a young man alive to preferment, and had not yet felt the touch of the
Episcopal Ithuriel [sic] spear for too much independence of opinion as a Church official. Later than
any of these, Rev. Dr. Miley of that Church has maintained publicly the third-order view. The
remarkable fact remains that the General Conferences themselves, penetrating the thin disguise and
lordly pretense, have always opportunely clipped the wings of these high flyers, whether in or out
of the bishopric, and vetoed the claim, just as Wesley ignored the action of the Christmas
Conference, and at least made tentative efforts to control his American superintendents down to his
decease, as though such action was null and void and so it was in Wesley's esteem. Finally, the
General Conference of 1884 put an extinguisher on it by a rebellious rush at it, initiated by Rev. Dr.
Neely of the Philadelphia Conference, a conference of "Radicals" in its lay membership almost in
mass, and of the preachers as respecting their Christian manhood against all encroachments of the
Episcopacy. The leaven dates back to 1820, from Ezekiel Cooper, William S. Stockton, and other
stanch Reformers. The following resolution was passed by a large majority in 1884, "Resolved, that
we reaffirm the doctrine of the fathers of our Church, that the Bishopric is not all order, but an office;
and that in orders a Bishop is merely an Elder, or Presbyter." Dr. Curry, alert and favoring it, at once
supplemented it by another resolution which almost unanimously prevailed, "Resolved, that these
words be inserted at the beginning of the ritual for the consecration of Bishops (this service is not
to be understood as an ordination to a higher Order in the Christian Ministry, beyond and above that
of Elders, or Presbyters, but a solemn and fitting Consecration for the special and most sacred duties
of Superintendency in the Church)." Thus, precisely one hundred years after the Christmas
Conference, Wesley's simple intent is acknowledged; but what controversy, strife, ambition, lording
it over God's heritage, political scheming, and final rending of the Church in twain, the Asburyan
assumptions have cost the denomination! The theory is, perhaps, at last settled for the Church North,
but the law-structure as to the Episcopacy remains largely unamenable, making abuse possible and
redress difficult, of which ever recurring instances keep the thoughtful preachers on the rack as to
what else must be done to keep, not so much any longer the office, but the officer, under limitations.
Admission has already been offered that it has made, next to the Popedom, the strongest, and so far
as strength alone makes efficiency, the most efficient church government in Christendom; but the
exception inheres that a government that is so strong as to nullify the manhood of its adherents is too
strong for the submission of self-respecting men. The primary question under consideration led to
this trend, and it is followed historically to this disposal.
Returning to the averment of McCaine that the question of 1789 made Wesley the first of the
Methodist Bishops, the opinion receives trenchant support from Tyerman, representing the
traditional view of it as held by Wesleyan preachers, and showing that Dr. Emory's quibble affirming
a difference between the "Episcopal office" and the "Bishop" was rejected by the common sense of
the English Methodists. After quoting the question of 1789, Tyerman says: "This grandiloquent
parade of office must not be ascribed to Wesley. He never sanctioned it; he positively condemned